From the Archives: 25 Years Ago Thanks to the generous efforts of our webmaster (and former NYFOA president) Jim Minor, the entire 57 year collection of New York Forest Owner newsletters and magazines are available for public viewing on the NYFOA website. To find the archive, go to www.nyfoa.org, click on “Resources” on the home page, where you can then click on “Archives of The New York Forest Owner.” The archive can simply be browsed, can be searched by year, or by topic with keyword searches. It is an incredible resource, as well as an historical document of changes in our forests, forest practices, management objectives over time, and of course of the evolution of NYFOA itself. The two following articles reprinted here first ran in 1995. Thanks (again) to the respective authors.
The Tao of Woodstacking Patricia Kay Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub; It is the center hole that makes it useful. Shape clay into a vessel; It is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room; It is the holes which make it useful. Therefore profit comes from what is there; Usefulness from what is not there. —Lao Tsu from the Tao Te Ching I started stacking firewood for the first time when I moved to the Northeast ten years ago. Since burning wood is the primary source of beating that my husband and I use during the winter, I have had much practice and have committed many hours to the Tao of woodstacking. Tao! You might be saying. What does Taoism have to do with woodstacking? Isn’t Tao an Eastern philosophy? Taoism teaches balance and harmony within one’s entire self to the divine order of all things. Everything has a place and a purpose, profit and usefulness, yin and yang — opposites that can harmonize together. Woodstacking, when done properly, is all of these things. While woodstacking 12
I have bad the luxury of wandering thoughts; I have come to realize that the piecing together of firewood is similar to the piecing together of humankind as related to the spirit — to Taoism. Woodstacking needs to begin with a solid foundation. The base needs to be strong and stable. Therefore, it is best to place big, precise, evenly shaped pieces, packed tightly together on the bottom. This ground row needs to consist of hardwoods like maple, cherry or oak-wood that is troublesome to start a fire with, but will coal and hold the heat once burning. The softer hardwoods like poplar or birch must not touch the ground as they will rot over time, but they will be the wood you use to light the fire. All other rows need not have such perfect pieces and any species of wood is acceptable. As the stack rises upward, use the pieces with knobs and protruding branch knolls to even the stack, so it does not lean to one side or the other. Small pieces, half pieces and the round unsplit branch pieces fit nicely into the gaps created by the big triangular pieces. Diversity is what makes a strong stack that will last through the tough, harsh winter and withstand the
bowling, forceful north winds. And when it comes time to burn the wood, a good mixture of size and kind will provide the best beat. At last you will come to the top of the woodstack. This is where all those pieces that just did not seem to fit anywhere else belong. These are the craggy, misshapen oddball pieces. Although these pieces lack the conformity of all the others, they provide heat as well as any piece in the pile. They are just as useful. They top off the pile and they will hold the plastic protective covering. They are essential and important. Diversity in humankind is what will create a lasting and vital society upon the planet. Finding harmony within the different dimensions of the human spirit will produce a solid base and a strong upward development that will lead to simple happiness and a greater understanding of life. Acceptance of all aspects of the human race will provide a complete life of deep spirituality. Those people on the top of the pile, the people of our society who are not perfect — the handicapped, the misfits, the slow, the retarded, the diseased, the abnormal — are also essential. They are important and have
The New York Forest Owner 58:4 • July/August 2020
